


Duality - Of Rest and Sleep

by KnightOwl725



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: F/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27429877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KnightOwl725/pseuds/KnightOwl725
Summary: Among the guests who attended the famed party in the Underworld were the Charities. While at the event, Pasithea strayed from the event and encountered a strange man the likes of who she'd never seen before. Like her own personal sleeping-beauty-meets-cinderella, the night ends before she knows even his name. But Pasithea is determined, and even her mother Hera's disapproval will not keep her from the man who stole her heart.For Hades Nanowrimo Bingo!
Relationships: Hypnos/Pasithea
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is lowkey very silly and sweet and cheesy and just 1000% for fun. Some friends and I learned about Pasithea and Hypnos and became obsessed with the pairing, despite it not remotely existing in the game. What can I say, I love an unconventional M/F romance.

There was no party without the charities. 

Well, there was no party without Dionysus, but his daughters brought their unique charms that, without each, left any event lacking. And so of course they were welcomed among the many gods to meet with Cousin Zagreus in the depths of the underworld.

The news was appropriately scandalous, the wine plentiful, the house charming if macabre, and the company in the highest spirits. Pasithea, although one of the calmer sisters, was popular enough in this strange new environment. When party goers had their fill of the high energy her sisters could offer, they drifted towards her. The calm of her voice, the swirl of her eyes, even the soft and flowing nature of her clothing lent itself to a pleasant form of consciousness before the retribution of sobriety set in. After all, what goes up must come down.

In a particularly loud moment, her wine god father himself challenging the hell-prince to a friendly wager, Pasithea slipped from the swell of the crowd into the quiet halls of the house of Hades. Perhaps it was rude to stray like this, but the nature of the event left no room for Lord Hades' punishment. Besides, how often did one come to the underworld? 

She resisted any urge to peer into closed rooms - no need to tempt the fates - instead wandering in a sort of contented daze past portraits and busts and contraptions and sculptures. She paused to admire one such contraption, something entirely in gold with no sort of plaque to explain it. As her mind wandered its own corridors, she noticed a splash of vibrant red on the opposite wall. 

It was a figure, clad in red robes and wrapped in a plush, quilt-like cloak. They lay draped across a stiff, unyielding bench as though it were made of the softest material Olympus had to offer. There was little to see of this figure, so enveloped were they, but she could make out a decorated eye mask and a cloud of white hair. 

Who was this? Why were they sleeping amidst such a grand event? How were they so comfortable in such an unwelcoming space? This was the underworld, and even she found herself unable to fully relax.

A swell from the distant party tore her attention free, and her shift caused her to bump the piece she had admired. It shifted just barely, too heavy to knock free but heavy enough that its jostling awoke the figure.

They bolted upright, floating ever so slightly as they pulled their mask up into their fluffy hair.

"Oh, hi! Hello!" 

A man, then, but one with a voice as bright as birdsong. His sudden awakening seemed to have no affect on his chipper tone.

"You must be from the party," he noticed, smiling despite her silence. "If you want to enjoy the party, you should try to stay near everyone else! If you go that way and take a left, you'll be right back. Try not to get lost again!"

She followed his gesture to look back the way she came, then back to him. When she didn't move he asked, "Oh! Did you need something else?"

“Aren’t you coming to the party?” she asked, her own voice willowy and a little breathless.

“In just a moment, I think. I’ve got to finish this list for Lord Hades! He insisted I have it done before the party, and I figure as long as I haven’t attended the party before it’s done I’m covered.”

He gestured widely to a table beside his bench where a stack of parchment and a quill lay, the edges of the top parchment lined in dramatic borders. 

This flawed logic brought a smile to her face. What a strange, silly man this was. And so bright in such a dark place. 

“When you join, you will find me and my sisters, then,” she said. “We will celebrate your completed list together.”

“Sure!” he said. “I did promise Megaera I’d get a drink with her at the party, not that she ever did agree on her end, but I’m sure that won’t take long. I ought to say hi to Zagreus as well first, and then my brother.”

“Perhaps you ought to make a list for your greetings as well,” Pasithea teased, stepping closer. She reached to the table, freeing a blank piece of parchment. With a flick of her wrist, the quill rose and wrote out “List of Who To Greet at The Party” at the top. It floated down to draw several dots, one below the previous, until it reached a fourth. There, it simply wrote “Charities”. As a final flourish, a few of the names he’d mentioned filled the first few lines.

“Oh, gee, thanks!” he exclaimed, taking the list from her eagerly. “This’ll help a lot!”

“After your work is done, then,” Pasithea said, her own farewell.

“See ya soon!” he called after her. Pasithea floated her way back to the party, pulled back in by her sisters as soon as was within their sights. She tried not to worry about the cloud-haired man. Still, her eyes found their way back to the door every chance they had until it was her leaving through those doors, deflated and unaffected by the joys of her sisters.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pasithea learns the identity of the man she met at the party, as well as her mother's disapproval.

Her own private high on that night faded in the light of disappointment, disappointment only quelled by the thought that maybe he had never joined the party at all. Maybe his task had taken far too long, or he had fallen back asleep. Had she not herself been distracted from important tasks? Had she not missed events and sunrises and starlight parties simply by accident?

She had learned who this Megaera was, a strict, sharp-edged Fury. Certainly not a match for the charming man! At least, she hoped.

In the quiet weeks that followed the party, talk of it hardly diminished among the highest circles of the gods. Likewise, its events remained fresh in Pasithea’s mind. And so it was with an uncharacteristic determination that she approached her mother, Hera, and made her request.

“An underworld god?” Hera asked, seated at her grand balcony high on Olympus. A cornucopia sat before her, the first in some time now that Demeter had lessened her icy hold on the world. Hera plucked a grape from within, chewing it thoughtfully before swallowing and saying, “Surely not Zagreus?”

“No, Mother,” Pasithea assured her. “Someone else.”

She circumvented the god comment, for she was not entirely positive that he was a god. Certainly he had to be. He was too regal a soul to be anything but. And all of the house’s servants were at the party.

“Who, then?” Hera murmured, more to herself than Pasithea. She tapped on her chin, looking out over the balcony. She liked these little games far too much for Pasithea to interrupt her with an answer. “There aren’t many other gods to speak of. Certainly not Nyx nor Chaos. Must be one of Nyx’s sons, then, her actual sons.”

She seemed satisfied with her conclusion and turned back to Pasithea, indicating it was her turn to speak.

“Yes, possibly, but I didn’t get his name.”

“No name? You sound like Zeus, falling in love at the mere sight of a person,” Hera said with a huff.

“I would never dare betray you, Mother,” Pasithea said. Although it hadn’t been what Hera said, it was, in its roundabout way, what she meant.

Hera waved a hand at her, dismissing her assurances and Hera’s own bitterness. “No, no, you are the least of my concerns. If you’ve no name, then describe him for me.”

“He had this long cloak and white hair and these sort of golden wings off his shoulders,” Pasithea began, and Hera nodded in recognition.

“Certainly one of Nyx’s boys, then. Must be Thanatos. He’s certainly handsome enough, but dear, you wouldn’t have luck with that one. Not with your cousin around, and the peace is too fresh to start any conflict anew.”

“Cousin?” Pasithea asked, deflating as she did. “Zagreus?”

Another grape vanished into Hera’s mouth. “Hm, yes. The Prince of Hell and Lord Death are quite attached, I understand.”

Memory clicked for her as she recalled what she knew of the God of Death, Thanatos. But that didn’t seem quite right, did it?

“Are you certain, Mother?” she asked. “The man I spoke to was quite cheerful and dressed brightly.”

“Ah, not Thanatos then certainly,” Hera corrected.

“Nyx has other sons?”

Hera hesitated, concern coming over her face like nightfall. “Yes, she does. The boatman, Charon, for one.”

“No, I met Charon, it wasn’t him.”

“No,” Hera said, giving Pasithea a stern look.

“No?”

“You are not trying to tell me you’re interested in Hypnos. The boy is a fool, and a lazy one at that.”

Pasithea felt hope return to her like a cloud forming in her chest, one as fluffy and bright as his hair. “You know him, then?”

“Wears a ridiculous red coat, curly hair, always sleeping,” Hera muttered.

“You do know him!” Pasithea’s face burst into joy and relief. She murmured his name to herself, committing it to a deep part of her memory. “Hypnos.”

Hera shook her head with a pained expression. “Don’t look at me like that, Child. He’s scarcely worth your time. I worked with him some ages ago - I needed Zeus put into a deep slumber for a time. When Zeus awoke, Hypnos ran to hide behind his mother like a cowering infant. Hah!”

“God of sleep then, is that right?”

Hera sighed. “I won’t arrange anything on your behalf. I don’t approve of this pairing in the slightest!”

But no daughter of Hera was born a fool, and so even as Pasithea sighed and accepted her mother’s decision, she had already several plots devised to the contrary.

Easiest was her first step, for within the week there was a grand feast at Zeus’s command. Pasithea and her sisters lavished their ruler with their gifts until they walked away with the story of how Hypnos had betrayed him under Hera’s orders. 

Then, it was waiting.

In the mortal world at this time, the Trojan war was waging. Its chaos took over even Olympus, although its king-god refused to involve himself in the conflict. 

Hera confided to her daughters, the charities at this time. She vented of her husband, wishing only for a chance to aid the Akhaians while he prevented any such schemes.

“Perhaps you need a distraction,” Thalia suggested, idly playing at her harp. Pasithea lay on her couch, barely awake as she relaxed in the presence of her mother’s overwhelming tension. At least, that was how she seemed.

“Distraction?” Hera repeated, paused in her pacing.

“Like a party,” offered Euphrosyne.

“Or a wager, like a sport,” said Aglaea

Thalia sighed. “I think something more...time-consuming. A distraction that would leave him incapactiated for a time.”

Hera’s eyes sparkled, the idea planted unbeknownst to her. “I have a plan.”

Hera strode from the room, the receding footsteps followed by a suddenly conscious Pasithea. 

“Now, we wait,” Thalia said with her sly grin. 

Pasithea sighed. “I only hope he might agree.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thrilling conclusion! See Hypnos from another POV - Hera's. Play a fun spot-the-difference game from Chapter 1 and win...nothing. Except maybe some amusement.

“Oh, I don’t think so Lady Hera, ma’am,” Hypnos said in his irritating cheer.

Hera forced the smile to remain on her lips, agitated enough to have ventured all the way into the underworld to speak with the air-brained god. Hadn’t Pasithea been drawn to him not too long ago? Had her daughter gone mad? She’d almost thought he must have changed in the years since their last...project, but here he was. Same as ever.

“It would be a great boon to your queen.”

“Well, technically Persephone is my queen,” Hypnos corrected, waving about his quill as he spoke. “And she doesn’t really care. Unless she told you otherwise? No, I don’t think she cares much about mortal wars right now. Besides! Last time I helped you trick Zeus he nearly had my head! If it wasn’t for Mother, you’d have a nice mounted Hypnos-head over your fireplace.”

“I can assure you, that won’t happen again. I’ve plans to ensure your protection this time.”

He giggled, and she felt her eye twitch. “Well, maybe, but I’ve just got so much work to do here nowadays. Especially with the war and all! So many dead, and everyone needs checking in and a chance to talk, and then I’ve got to file my reports and--”

“A trade, then,” Hera offered, exasperated. “I can offer you a fine golden throne, one hand-crafted by Hephaestus himself.”

“I already have a nice chair that Zagreus bought me. Besides! I can float! I don’t really need one at all. Maybe try something better if you’re going to bribe me.”

Perhaps he had changed. She didn’t remember him being a negotiator.

“I can make you an oath, then, to protect you should you be found out.”

“Well, I’m definitely going to need one of those anyway,” he said with a laugh. She dreamt of wringing his little wiry neck. 

And then, she remembered her daughter again. Pasithea had been so taken with the man, so disappointed when Hera refused to help her. Hera was her mother, though, and sometimes hard choices had to be made. But if this would make her daughter happy and secure her Hypnos’s aid, then perhaps…

“What of a wife, then,” Hera offered. “Certainly Zagreus hasn’t bought you one of those already.”

“Oh, no, he’s not the type, thankfully! It’s really nice of you to offer and all, Lady Hera, but you’re already married and I--”

“Not. Me,” she snapped. “One of my daughters, a Charity. Pasithea.”

“A Charity?” he repeated.

“You met her before, at the party held here.”

“Oh!” Hypnos said, floating up a little higher in his moment of recognition. “I remember her! She was nice. Really beautiful, too! She made me a list and everything.”

“Then it’s a deal!” Hera needed to get out of here and away from this miserable man.

“I don’t know - making someone marry someone else hasn’t ever really worked out in the underworld.”

That, she would admit, was fair. “Pasithea would not be forced. She… I will speak to her on it. Our deal is contingent upon her agreement, then.”

Hypnos hummed as he thought about it, muttering obnoxiously to himself. “Something tells me you’re not going to let this go, and I ought to quit while I’m ahead. Alright, then! Sure!”

And it was this way, through a scheme of Pasithea transformed into a scheme of Hera, that the God of Sleep Hypnos and the Charity Pasithea were wed. 

Hypnos found himself delightfully surprised by the devotion and adoration of his wife, for whom he quickly developed an equal fondness. He would later say it was definitely worth having to dump Meg.

The remainder of the Underworld and Olympus combined never did make sense of this connection, nor the number of children produced by the likely-yet-unlikely pair. 

And Pasithea in all her dreams and scheming and pining found the reality of her partner far surpassed any joy she could have imagined.


End file.
